Environmental issues

Being the most populous area in the Cape, native habitats are continuously threatened by a number of different threats. In this website we intend to highlight some of the more important threats to areas with the aim of ultimately addressing these issues. We hope to create a site where issues can be highlighted described, portrayed, discussed and tracked. We also wish to create a rating system for developers and environmental consultancies to try and mitigate the number of incompetent and unscrupulous operators.

We currently face the following threats in the Cape:

• Urban Creep – We feel a cap should be put on the extent of the CMA
• Trend towards building on beaches, mountains and wetlands
• Development of areas with insufficient water: Betty’s Bay, Worcester
• Irresponsible and Unnecessary mowing of road reserves
• Destruction of wetlands
• Lack of nature reserves
• Destruction of nature reserves and selling-off of nature reserves for development
• Planting of known invasives
  • Kikuyu
• Ongoing afforestation of invasive species in marginal or sensitive aresas for paper or timber
• Fragmentation of fire-dependent ecosystems
  • Housing
  • Firebreaks
• Unnecessary disturbance of areas
• Poor control of invasives
• Agricultural Spread – potatoes, vineyards
• Overgrazing
• Lack of recycling
• Cigarette fires
• Water extraction
  • Arid areas
  • Deep Table Mountain Aquifer
• Lack of alternative energies
• The PBMR project
• Damming of rivers - Berg river
• Displacement of ordinary crops by GM crops